


last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again

by firelordazulas



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/F, dont even ask, this was inspired by poststructuralism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 11:22:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11103549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firelordazulas/pseuds/firelordazulas
Summary: You wake. And wake. And wake. A gasp like a bucket of cold water; eyelids that flutter but don’t open. She traps you under with her, reaches her red lacquered nails up and up into the waking world to hold you under. Her nails rest on your throat. It’s both a threat and a promise. You have felt the power of those claws - you know every time you wake you are closer to being held down within forever.





	last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elainebarrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/gifts).



> anyway just sayin but like listen to blinding - florence and the machine while reading this probably
> 
> also like serious rebecca - daphne du maurier spoilers and like u probs dont need 2 have read the book 2 get this but like it might ??? help ??? i guess ???

It’s a rolling sea, a cascade of gold. The buildings sweep you up in a liquid embrace. You are rushing, flying, fighting to stay afloat - you are completely still, you are given up, given away, no glory or splendour left in your skin. She says that you glowed as the world came apart. That you radiated a pale, vibrant beauty. When Mal says it, you almost want to believe it. While anything you can imagine is possible within a dream, you as a God isn’t, shouldn’t be. Mal says the sun was your crown.

You dream of the moon. You dream in silver and moonlight, your world monochrome but for her lips. You tell yourself your fantasies are harmless, a victimless crime; you haven’t yet accepted that suicide is a type of murder.   
You stand under the silver glow, watch its reflection in the cool pool. Her eyes reflect their watery light back to you. She is only standing there on the opposite bank, watching, watching. 

You wake. And wake. And wake. A gasp like a bucket of cold water; eyelids that flutter but don’t open. She traps you under with her, reaches her red lacquered nails up and up into the waking world to hold you under. Her nails rest on your throat. It’s both a threat and a promise. You have felt the power of those claws - you know every time you wake you are closer to being held down within forever. She wants company. Some part of her is still human, some part of her construction comes from the undeniably human parts of yourself, from your want and your lust and, ultimately, your loneliness. 

It’s a mansion with a curving drive that you visit, again and again and again. She comes for you there. The fog hangs low over the rose bushes - the weather is always the same, the air always thick with moisture and humidity. There is only the lightest of breezes, but the wind is always frigid - it is not only that that gives you goosebumps.   
This is where she’ll find you. This is where she finds you every night - this is what every structure you build looks like, what every maze leads to. The very bones of the place haunt you. Your Manderly, the one you breathed life into at 15, the romanticisation of a girls dream, lies around every corner of memory. A murder mystery wrapped in a beautiful ghost that you never quite managed to shake yourself free of. 

That Manderly should be both your own private hell and a paradise… You think of the you of years ago, the small girl twisted in a small space devouring a small tale of a girl in love with a ghost. Is Mal your ghost? Has this story been waiting for you underneath the bounds of your dreamscape, both a fantasy and a nightmare? 

The sea rages. You have walked from the meadow to the sea, for it is Manderly you dream of once again. The cottage stands to the right of the sea, and it is cold and derelict. It seems as if she will be waiting inside. Maybe you know she is.   
There’s the ghost of a body, a trail of blood, but Mal isn’t the for dead she’s for the living. The illusion of a perfect marriage crashes its body against the rocks. Cobb’s corpse waits in the deep. The two of them as ill-fated lovers, wound together like a kidnapping of a beautiful girl, burns in the fire. Their memory haunts you, given life by your imaginings, by the words you bestow upon their narrative. Who is the victim and who is the villain?   
You open the door and open the door and open the door. She is in bed with a man, who is then a body, who is then nothing but salt water. Her hands lay open and empty but it does not look like she is missing anything. The water runs past your shoes.   
“You’re late.”  
“And you’re not real; looks like we both can’t get what we want.”  
She both loves and hates you like this, glib and wanting. Sometimes you are terrified. Mostly, you are angry, but so is she. Mal’s anger is that of the gods, the rage of someone who knows she deserves better, as if the sun was hers to want and hers to take. It’s an exhausting fire to be the target of. Is this a rage born of your body? Does it come from your mouth? Was it given shape by your secret wants and desires, conceptualised by your hidden thoughts?   
“Oh, so you admit you want me now?” She slides from the bed sheets. Her feet make no sound as they hit the ground.   
“Does it matter? Has it ever mattered?”  
“I suppose not.”  
Her laughter rises on a wave. It echoes across the sea to you - it drifts through memory. Your breath gives it voice. As you breathe, so does she; so does the memory of her construction, the life given to her lips. She lives as you give her words.   
That’s what you’ve convinced yourself of. In the dark of the night you feel her coming for you - the spectre of a broken marriage, a broken woman following you through your dreams. Both the living and the dreaming she finds you within. 

You start to see her in your waking hours. She’s following you through your life, slinking after you through the dark, gathering in all the places the barrier between dreams and reality are thinnest. You think she might be living under your bed. That she waits for you in the classroom you pass everyday that is always empty. That she lives within every window and mirror you see out of the corner of your eye. You desperately murmur to yourself that she can’t touch you, that she isn’t real, that she can’t be there, but still you see her in all those places that don’t quite touch reality. Like Schrodinger's murderous ex-wife how do you know she’s not there if you never check? 

You are building a hallway. It is meant to end in a trick of the light, in a lie, but instead it rises into a beautiful staircase, into another beautiful dream. The space which was once light and airy becomes dark and foreboding. The white light of a modern, open space becomes the dark yellow of candlelight. It is not a gentle warmth. Mal waits at the top. She wears a mockery of a maid’s uniform; the vast painting of a woman in white also wears her face. Will every woman you dream of be replaced by her? Has she become every archetype, every version of your fantasy, that in your dreaming you cannot think of another face? You climb the staircase towards her. She looks benevolent and kind. She always is at this point of first meeting, this first contact. It is once she has her claws in you that she turns into a malevolent fury.   
Mal waits for you to rise. Her dress is a cascade of shining, black diamonds. You know now that she is Rebecca. And you are the narrator, doomed to find out the truth, doomed to be pushed out and under by the mystery of this one beautiful, perfect woman. She brushes a gentle hand over your cheek, your jaw. You stare straight at her, as if looking into the sun, or the depths of a fire; it burns, just as you knew it would. She pushes a gun into your temple. You fall and rise and rise and rise. 

It is a sweet summer’s day. You look about you and see nothing that does not gladden your heart. You know you are in a dream, but still your loved ones surround you; the team that you have built, the men that you have come to trust with your life, look on with joy. Mal places an arm possessively about your waist. Somehow, it does not seem odd that Cobb does not react to this. Mal kisses you under the strong sun. The dream does not fracture, her body does not twist or become evil, she is not rent from your arms; the sun continues its strong shining. Your friends keep laughing. You know you have been dragged under with her, for good. You know you will never wake up. 

It does not seem such a hardship.

**Author's Note:**

> ANYWAY i have no idea why this is some weird mash up of rebecca and inception but !! it happened !!! and it feels unfinished bc it is probably i just wanted 2 just like get rid of it bc ive been writing it for 10 million years now


End file.
